A bluebird came streaking violently out of Central Park,
it blurred over the lanes of traffic towards 220.
I flinched in anticipation of the impact,
but at the last second it darted directly up,
as if caught in a sudden wind current.
“Did you see that?” I asked Lisa.
She didn’t, her phone was jiggling.

My boyfriend left yesterday
He had to leave before New Year’s eve!
he has to work and cannot play
he finally gets to run the hadron collider
go get em’ tiger
but I’ve decided
you can’t fight the zeitgeist
that when the cats away
the girls will have their day.

Someone start the music please,
because it’s NEW YEARS Eve!

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!
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Songs for this:
There goes my baby by Kelly Jones
Back on the chain gang by the pretenders

I see them in reflections - the orange juice glass at breakfast or my iPhone where they can pop-up, like notifications - I keep my phone face down.

They usually want to tell you something - how it was for them - their history. I discount these emotional messages - they come with the jester's assumption that I care - that I need the performance and will get involved.

“What are you doing?” My mom asks, as I’m taking all the shiny, mirror-like ornaments off the Christmas tree.
“The glare gives me a headache” I say, without stopping.
“Your Grandma does that too”, she says, wiping her hands on a Santa-themed dishtowel.
“Really?” I say, but I know that, and I know why.

I started having nightmares, when I was in first grade. My mom thought I had an overactive imagination but when she described it to my grandma, she soon showed up for a visit.

Over the next few weeks my Grandma told me about our “gift”. About how we were both born on the same day, under a waning third moon, in Autumn. That we're both “Yins,” doxies (sweethearts) of the dead and that we could, at times, see and hear people who were between stops on their way to their afterlives.

That’s why the dead parachute into my unused moments from reflective surfaces. They can be anxious or in despair - when their deaths were cruel or sudden - but I'm barely an adult - I'm in school - what can I do??

The presence of water discourages them - which is perfect - can you imagine seeing spirits in the reflections of your bath? EEUUUWWW!  
You’ll hardly ever see me without a water bottle or polarized sunglasses - which seem to break up the images. I'll not be smothered in other people's afterlives.

It’s a broken world
we need imperfect solutions
and there are plenty of questions

is it even possible to correct systemic
problems with individual solutions?

I recycle, so everything’s ok, ya?

some would usher in a revolution
while others would stand pat, thinking
they can marginally beat the house

the young believe the old are problematic,
out of touch and largely to blame for the world
the old push back on youthful, impractical,
self-indulgent and self-righteous idealisms

both groups must eventually wrestle with thorny questions

I doubt we could all agree on a short manifesto
or even a pithy rallying cry.
How about something brutal, almost offensive?

Dylan Thomas suggested we rage against the dying of the light,
but then again, it seems that's all we do these days—rage.

There’s a Korean concept called hwabyung,
or “burning sickness”—an intense, suppressed rage
that can blind and destroy us if we’re not careful

Science says we face a direct and bludgeoning future,
that we must be tenacious with the next phase of our evolution
—but must we be adults? Science is so 2014, and we’re all so smart.
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Songs for this:
Dance the Night Away by The Mavericks
I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack

Let's wax poetic - wax on..

We’re in for it
When we enter
the insubstantial country of love

That secret theater, in an invisible mansion of moods

it’s a resort that houses its share of speechless monologues and sore disappointments, all lovers know that, but there are infinite discoveries too—secret, intimate delights and sensual confidences.

Ok, wax off.

My horoscope this morning said, “any tension you’re experiencing now is just part of the process.”

Peter (my bf), flew in last night. When we’re separated too long, remembering him, remembering us, can at times, seem like a memory exercise and I find myself wondering if I’m wasting my bikini years on a handshake deal. Then we’re reunited and bam, I’m reminded why it’s a ‘dub-u, dub’ again.

He’s a delectation—in a Christmas bauble kind of way—shiny and dangerous because I want to touch him—but not be loud or showy about it. Leeza (Lisa’s 14-year-old sister) whispered to me, when I was getting some ice, “You watch him with the too-still poise of a cat about to strike.” I smiled at the complement because I love cats.

Every once in a while I’ll pinch him, to make sure he’s real. “Oww! Stop that!
“What?!” I ask, pulling back as if innocently confused.

I got him a room at the Marriott Essex House. It’s 400 feet down W59th from Lisa’s building entrance to the front door of his hotel. I measured it off, with urgent steps—then I helped him unpack. We unpacked a lot.

Later, we joined Dave and Lisa for a Christmas light tour—Manhattan’s flexing its wow-factor for us.

I didn’t get to sit on Santas lap this year, I’m a little old for that,
but I did get what I wanted most—I’m sure I’m grinning like an idiot.
It’s not quite Christmas yet, but thanks, Santa.

🎄Merry Christmas🎄🕎Happy Hanukkah 🕎🌟Merry Kwanzaa🌟
💈Happy Festivas!💈
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Songs for this:
Heat Wave by Linda Ronstadt
Same Songs by Kelly Jones
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Two days until Christmas.. how ‘bout some Christmas playlists?
https://daweb.us/xmas/
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dub-u, dub = a big win

If you’re looking for yuletide cynicism here,
you’re shopping in the wrong place.

This is New York City’s time of year.
It’s stood the test of time and it fairly sparkles,
proving that the ordinary can be extraordinary.
With the right lighting.

Lisa’s (parent’s) apartment glitters like our promised heaven on high.
When we left at Thanksgiving, Michael (Lisa’s dad) had the concierge
service stressed, toting boxes of decorations up from their storage area.
When I waved my goodbyes, he appeared to be wrestling an octopus of
cool-white fairy lights into submission. Now everything glitters pyrite bright.

Our holiday time is limited—and this is our chance to unwind—so we’re
selective about what we decide to embrace. For instance, there was a sale
at Michael Kors where, no big deal, I got a pair of brogue, black
leather wingtips that’ll be straight fire with a little black dress.
The bargains were so good that I decided the store must be a drug front.
Not that I’m complaining. Do I ever complain? Nope, I’m stoic.

Like Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, Lisa and I’ve
been “testing the product” of Manhattan's club scene.
We’re searching diligently for the new and unfamiliar.

When it comes to picking which clubs we want to visit,
Charles, our driver and escort (a retired NYPD cop),
has gone as far as to suggest, we’re “out of our depth,”
and refused to let us even try one or two DJ’d, pop-up clubs
in Queens that were getting a lot of heat and likes.
“Roosevelt Avenue is the new 42nd Street,” he’d said.
What does that even mean??
Indignant silence

Anyway,
I hope Christmas finds you all merry and bright and that your holidays—whichever you celebrate— are carnivals of food, music, friendship and love—for those are the luxuries that count the most.
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Merry Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus!
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Songs for this:
Absolutely Everybody by Vanessa Amorosi
Rock With You by Traincha
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A Christmas Playlist—because there's 4 days til Christmas
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_28.mp3

I heard the door open. It was Leeza (Lisa’s 14-year-old sister),
she’d been out on a date. I was the only one in the living room
as she came in and sagged, dejectedly onto the huge, white
sectional couch, right next to me. She looked positively
deflated. Which is unusual because up until now,
she’s been all freckles and smiles

Ok, here’s where we get poetic and rhyme, with innuendo and allusion:

Me: “Did you have a good time?”
Leeza: “No but I was trying.”
Me: “Did he get handsy—the swine?”
Leeza: “Argh! No—but his kisses are a crime.”
I gasped: “You didn’t give him a climb!?”
Leeza “NO!” she said, somewhat horrified.
Me (trying to be neutral): “No judging, it would have been.. fine (I lied).”
Leeza: “That’s never going to happen.”
“Good,” I declared, “he was just a distraction—and, you know Santa.”
“What about Santa?”

Whew, that’s enough of THAT (rhyming business).

She asked, so, yeah, I sang it.. I had to.

“He knows who you’ve been kissing,
what you’re thinking when you’re awake,
he knows if you’ve been bad or good—
he’s kind of like a cop that way.”

After a moment's silence Leeza asked,
“Is there something creepy about that?”
“Only if you think about it.” I admitted,
as she put her head on my shoulder.
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A song for this:
Fairytale of New York (feat. Kirsty MacColl) by The Pogues
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A Christmas Playlist! There’s 6 days til Christmas (and Hanukkah)
http://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_25.mp3

(A Christmas vacation vignette)

Lisa and I choppered onto Manhattan island yesterday morning. We’d both felt toasted—so we took naps—and yay! We awoke recharged.

Later that evening, Lisa and I were at the ‘Elsie’ Rooftop Bar, in Manhattan, waiting for Lisa’s boyfriend, David.
Ok, man-friend? More age appropriate I suppose, he’s 27, but that description doesn’t have the same bf slap.
Dave’s a Wall Street M&A guy and they’ve been together for over a year - a future for them seems very real.

Slinky, jazz-like versions of secular Christmas favorites were playing somewhere and it’s a groove I slipped into immediately. We had reservations and I’d misbegottenly hoped for a five-star, breathtaking city view, but the indoor tables turned out to have these uncomfortable, high-backed, bench-like seats that face away from the windows—***? I made a mental note to check website pix in the future. The place is in need of some serious feng shui-ing.

Disappointed, I asked for a side table where there was, at least, a pitiable skyline view and I placed my iPad, volume down, on the table so I could side-watch the Thursday Night football game—hey, I’m not meeting MY boyfriend, ok? As the official third-wheel, I figured I’d need a little entertainment.

After a few moments, a waitress came by and she paused to look us over with a cat-like indifference that signaled she was better than me, better than us really. She was just cooler.
I was delighted—why am I drawn to people who look down on me?
I suppose I need years of psychoanalysis—but who’s got the time?

I glanced at Lisa. We know each other at a cellular level. With a milli-second of lash flutterings and eye dilations, I asked “are you getting this?” And she affirmed that she was. Because we’re cyborgs. A couple of cyborgs.
Just kidding. We’re not cyborgs, neither of us. We wish we were sometimes—think of the advantages, you could complete college in a blink—wirelessly.

Anyway, back to the narrative. The waitress reminded me of when I was starting high school and my mom and I toured colleges, how snooty the Harvard people were, even though I’d been accepted and offered a free-ride scholarship—I mean, shouldn’t we all have been one, big, self-congratulatory snooty-group together?
(Of course, I chose Yale because the people were totally friendly).

“I better get used to it,” I side-bar’d Lisa, who got the reference to my upcoming, year-long, master's program at Harvard—because we’re cyborgs. I handed ‘Laura’ (our snooty waitress was tagged) my Black American Express card, which got her attention, and said, “start a tab please—someone will join us—run a 40% tip too,” I added with a smile. She practically jogged off to get our drinks and hors d'oeuvres and I turned my attention to the game, you know, to catch up.

I love Pro football—it’s not really fall without football—is it? Even though Tom Brady retired. This all goes to say that I’m a pro football ******. Lisa likes it too, though she’s not totally obsessed.

Just after Laura brought us our martinis and ‘poached lobster’ slides, a random, well-dressed man (he was wearing an expensive Brioni, wool linen silk suit), 35-ish, receding mousy-brown hairline, high-ball glass in hand, took the opportunity to stop by and chat. “SO,” he said, in a deep, jolly, ice-breaking salesman’s voice,
“You girls like football?”
I decided that the suit was too shiny for a Brioni—was it a Zegna?—I idly wondered.
“We’ve boyfriends,” Lisa announced, almost apologetically, nodding to include me—in case he missed the plural. Undeterred, he swiveled my way—as if he needed a second opinion—and asked me,
“What do you like about football?” He sounded somewhat condescending to me, so I did what I always do with condescending males—I played the ‘ditzy-girl’ card, “The costumes,” I answered.
“The uniforms,” he gently, fatherly, corrected—before rocking back a little on his heels and sipping his drink.
“And the hats,” I updogged, but before he could digest my reply, David, Lisa’s man-friend, arrived on the scene.
“Sorry to be so late,” he said, giving me a little, jiggly, 4-finger wave, shedding his coat and giving Lisa a smooch on the top of her hair.
The salesman wordlessly took his leave.
It’s a night on the town—let the 3rd-wheeling begin!
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Songs for this:
Diamond Dave by The Bird and the Bee
You Belong to Me by Vonda Shepard
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And a Christmas Playlist - because the big day is 8 days away!
http://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_24.mp3